Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

lifestyles. Canon XXVII, which prohibits the unlicenced movement of monks between
communities (monasteria), hints at well-defined institutions with authority clearly held
by the abbot. Its intention, echoed for instance by a synod held at Orléans in 511, was to
prevent monks leaving communities in order to establish themselves as hermits in solitary
cells. 39 In the same vein, canon LVIII prohibits the foundation of new cells (cellulas) or
small monasteries (congregatiunculas monachorum) without episcopal permission. 40 In
the light of this, another canon, dealing with monasteria puellarum, is hard to interpret. 41
Its requirement, that such monasteria should be some distance away from male houses,
may similarly suggest institutions which were clearly defined as communal houses for
dedicated women. Did the requirement also apply to women who lived a dedicated life
alone or in much smaller, informal groups? Given that the reason put forward, ‘because
of the cunning of Satan or because of the evil report of men’, again suggests Caesarius’
desire to ensure the separation and purity of his religious personnel, one might consider
that women living a more informal life would be more likely to be the subject of gossip
than their peers who resided in clearly separate communities. It would appear that in this
instance, the precise living arrangements of the women concerned mattered less than the
recognition of their probity by the rest of Caesarius’ nascent Christian society.
Parallel forms of dedication: Fuscina of Vienne
Caesarius’ foundation for women in Arles, and its associated texts, can therefore
be placed in a broad context of physical and normative evidence for different means of
living a dedicated life at this time. Yet one further comparison remains to be explored. At
the same time as the relationship between Caesarius and Caesaria was developing into
that of bishop and abbess, another set of siblings, Avitus, bishop of Vienne and his sister
Fuscina, were engaged in a similar spiritual dialogue. 42 Avitus’ episcopate (c.494 –
39
Synod of Orléans (511), can. XXII. C. de Clercq (ed.) Concilia Galliae A.511 – A.695. CCSL 148A
(Turnhout, 1963) 11.
40
Agde (506), can. LVIII. Concilia Galliae A.314 – A.506, 226.
41
Agde (506), can. XXVIII. Concilia Galliae A.314 – A.506, 205.
42
On Avitus, see D. Shanzer and I. Wood (eds.) Avitus of Vienne: Letters and Selected Prose (Liverpool,
2002), G.W. Shea The Poems of Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus (Tempe, AZ, 1997), D.R. Shanzer, ‘Review of
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